Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But the main game is to find enough winners to more than offset the losers At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Town Centre Securities PLC (LON:TOWN), since the last five years saw the share price fall 52%. The falls have accelerated recently, with the share price down 13% in the last three months. However, one could argue that the price has been influenced by the general market, which is down 7.0% in the same timeframe.

With that in mind, it's worth seeing if the company's underlying fundamentals have been the driver of long term performance, or if there are some discrepancies.

See our latest analysis for Town Centre Securities

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. By comparing earnings per share (EPS) and share price changes over time, we can get a feel for how investor attitudes to a company have morphed over time.

Town Centre Securities became profitable within the last five years. Most would consider that to be a good thing, so it's counter-intuitive to see the share price declining. Other metrics may better explain the share price move.

Arguably, the revenue drop of 3.2% a year for half a decade suggests that the company can't grow in the long term. That could explain the weak share price.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

We know that Town Centre Securities has improved its bottom line lately, but what does the future have in store? So it makes a lot of sense to check out what analysts think Town Centre Securities will earn in the future (free profit forecasts).

What About Dividends?

It is important to consider the total shareholder return, as well as the share price return, for any given stock. The TSR is a return calculation that accounts for the value of cash dividends (assuming that any dividend received was reinvested) and the calculated value of any discounted capital raisings and spin-offs. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Town Centre Securities the TSR over the last 5 years was -40%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Although it hurts that Town Centre Securities returned a loss of 3.6% in the last twelve months, the broader market was actually worse, returning a loss of 6.1%. Of far more concern is the 7% p.a. loss served to shareholders over the last five years. This sort of share price action isn't particularly encouraging, but at least the losses are slowing. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Town Centre Securities better, we need to consider many other factors. Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 5 warning signs with Town Centre Securities (at least 2 which don't sit too well with us) , and understanding them should be part of your investment process.